#MuckRock Monthly: Late night T service, Westboro Baptists, and porn…

We’re starting a new monthly list with the open government/public records news service MuckRock. They keep the government honest by helping people file freedom of information requests all over the country. Here’s five highlights from the past month:

This means that while you drunken degenerates T-surf ’til 3 a.m. the MBTA has no solid clue how much it’s costing the city. But like we told you earlier this week, you fools better get on it and ride, otherwise the T will revert to its fun-repellent ways faster than you can sing Seasons of Love in Icelandic.

The FBI file of Deep Throat male co-star Harry Reems

Don’t lie, you’ve seen it. Now scroll through this timeline and figure out why the feds were watching Linda Lovelace and her co-star, a.k.a. Herbert Streicher.

The U.S. Marshals released their file on Westboro Baptist Church leader Fred Phelps

Head gay-hater Fred Phelps is no more. Typically, when someone dies, all the three-letter federal agencies — FBI, CIA, etc. — are willing to release whatever files they have on the deceased. Seems the U.S. Marshals looked into Phelps over WBC’s protest of funerals. Read up over here.

The Department of Homeland Security monitors your social networks

And MuckRock has their handbook. Not everyone loves the NSA peeping at all their red cup photos. If that’s you, help MuckRock scour the DHS manual for surveilling social media.

We’re lucky to have the Freedom of Information Act in the U.S.

In the weekly Requester’s Voice series MuckRock talks to journalists, lawyers, and every day John Does, taking the temperature of the open government landscape. In the latest, MuckRock spoke to an anthropologist who studies government secrecy, including this batshit FOIA training video from the Pentagon.